Biographical Notes: Mrs. Edwin Thanhouser, the
former Gertrude Homan, had extensive stage experience and was a child star. She was born
in Beauvoir, Mississippi on April 23, 1882 (one family account gives a different date,
1880). She soon moved north to Brooklyn, New York with her parents. At the age of six she
played her first part on the stage. From then until she married Edwin
Thanhouser 12 years later, she appeared in many productions, including the title roles
in Little Lord Fauntleroy and Editha's Burglar. In the late 1890s she joined
the stock company at the Academy of Music in Milwaukee, which was managed by Edwin
Thanhouser. Gertrude Homan married Edwin Thanhouser in Brooklyn on February 8, 1900. In
the years at New Rochelle during the film business, she reviewed scripts, wrote scenarios,
and helped Edwin Thanhouser in many ways. According to family tradition, she acted in just
one Thanhouser film, the 1910 release of St. Elmo. After returning to Thanhouser in
1915, she was responsible for writing scenarios for several productions.

Gertrude Homan had nine siblings. Her sister Marie, known
as "Molly" to her friends, was about ten years older and, by the time Gertrude
was 10, Molly was Mrs. Lloyd F. Lonergan. A brother, Frank,
was 20 years older, married and had several children, but his family never visited with
the Thanhousers in later years. Gertrude's younger brother, George Homan, Jr., remained a
bachelor throughout his life and passed away in the 1920s. Ida, the oldest of Gertrude's
sisters, married Kennedy Stout, who worked with the United States Department of the
Interior in the Bureau of Indian Affairs. "Uncle Ken was a pedantic man," Edwin
Thanhouser's son, Lloyd, recalled in later years. "He was full of wise sayings, such
as 'What is so rare as a day in June? As for me, I'd like 'em better done!' Aunt Ida was
socially ambitious and wanted to join the Daughters of the American Revolution, and she
had the Homan family's genealogy investigated. Sure enough, a Homan fought in the
Revolutionary War, but the rascal turned out to be a Tory! Aunt Ida and Uncle Ken had one
child, Miner."

Louise, another of Gertrude's sisters, married a man named
Bayright, divorced him, and married I. Gainsburg, a New York lawyer. The firm of I. and
L.H. Gainsburg furnished the inspiration for a Broadway show, Counsellor at Law. Carey
Tidball, another of her sisters, was an actress and was on stage in Milwaukee in 1899 with
Edwin Thanhouser's stock company. Under the screen name of Carey L. Hastings she appeared
in many Thanhouser films from 1910 to 1917. Gertrude Homan Thanhouser died in her
apartment at 1 Fifth Avenue, New York City, on May 29, 1951.